Selma (2/5 Stars)

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen an incompentent movie in a theater. I don’t like seeing incompetent movies. They make me mad. So I do my homework. One tool I have is RottenTomatoes.com, a website that aggregates the film reviews. “Selma” had a 99% rating on RottenTomatoes before I went and saw it. Another tool is the endless slew of awards handed out at the end of each year. “Selma” garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Picture and another for Best Song. That is an odd pairing of nominations. Best Song is generally a bullshit award (because of the lack of movies that have original songs) and Best Picture should in theory be the hardest nomination to get (because every movie is up for it). The newspapers (I read NY Times) went to work in decrying a racially based snub for this movie’s director (Ava Duvernay) and starring actor (David Oyelowo) among others. The evidence: Selma was directed by a black woman and was about a black civil rights leader. What was striking about the dialogue going on in the NYTimes is that emphasis was put on the fact that there are no black actors nominated in any of the top categories this year from “Selma” or any other movie. This allegedly is proof that the Academy has a diversity problem. What did not receive much emphasis is whether the movies or performances were any good. And in not paying any attention to that, people got hurt. And by people, I mean me. I spent an uncomfortable two hours watching this movie when I otherwise wouldn’t have if there had been more of a discussion of the movie’s merits. There is a difference between what I found wrong with “The Imitation Game,” a biopic I felt was competently made but focused on the wrong aspects of the story and “Selma,” which is not competently made period. Is this an affirmative action honoree for Best Picture? Well, not exactly I think, but I will talk about that last. In the meantime here is a list of some things that are wrong with this picture.

Let’s start at the beginning:

Two scenes start this movie that have little to do with Selma, Alabama. One is Martin Luther King, Jr. accepting a Nobel Prize in Sweden. The second is a bombing of a church that kills four little girls. Now, these are important moments in Civil Rights History but the movie shows a confusion of scope by using them to introduce this particular story. What is this movie about? Is it a biopic of MLK in which the Nobel Prize scene would make sense. Is it about the Civil Rights Struggle in general in which a church bombing that does not take place in Selma and does not involve MLK would make sense. Or is it about MLK’s actions in Selma to call attention to vote discrimination and the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (I argue that it is) in which neither of the above scenes would be a relevant introduction. There is a scene about five-ten minutes into this movie in which an old woman (played by Oprah Winfrey, a producer as well) is denied the right to register to vote. Ditch the first two scenes,  open with that, and then stick to Selma (or make an entirely different movie). I will give two examples of great movies that are about the same subject. One is “Ghandi” which is a biographical epic that does a very good job of telling a large story with many people over the lifetime of its main character. The second is “Bloody Sunday” which concerns itself with one day of a civil rights struggle in Northern Ireland. A story with MLK could have gone either way. This movie tried to do both and weighed down by the mass of material it cut corners to the point that neither type of story worked.

The antagonists do not make any sense. Now we all know that Southern white people in the 1960s hate black people. I’m not debating that reality. But for a movie to work, the bad guys need to be explained. Remember the rule of biopics: Would this movie be any good if it were completely fictional? And I suspect it would be utterly confusing and impossible to follow if one did not already know what was going to happen (I did). The reasons why white people hate black people do not have to be persuasive but they do need to be understandable. Leonardo Dicaprio’s phrenology presentation in “Django Unchained” is especially prescient. “In the Heat of the Night” and “Burning Mississippi” both do great jobs of explaining the white characters in it. Or if you really want to understand racism, I mean really understand it from the inside out, watch “Birth of a Nation.” It is all right there. The takeaway from “Selma” is that white people don’t like black people just because they don't. This black/white treatment renders a scene 3/4ths of the way into the movie inexplicable: the appearance of plenty of white people who want to take part in the civil rights march. Who are these white people? Where do they come from? What makes them different from every other white person in the story?

The writer Paul Webb and the Director Ava Duvernay do not do the black characters that much justice either. Like most poorly written movies, there are at the same time too many characters and not enough of them. That is to say that the amount of people milling about without proper introductions or job descriptions make for a confusing mess and at the same time only MLK Jr. is given enough screen time to render an impact. Halfway through the movie Cuba Gooding Jr. starts talking with Martin Sheen about something. I had no idea who they were or how they were involved in the story. In a later scene we see them in a courtroom. Cuba is a lawyer. Martin is a judge. ANYWAY, generally speaking when a movie introduces a character halfway through a movie, they do it by having them meet a character we already know. This gives the two of them the opportunity to shake hands or something and exchange names or whatever. That does not happen in “Selma.” Instead two unknown characters just start talking to each other.

There are also a disconcerting amount of scenes wherein supposedly smart people explain basic things to other supposedly smart people who for some weird reason don't know these basic things. There is one scene where a character (whose name I did not remember) is debating with another person (who I had never seen before) the choice between violent and nonviolent protest. What is astounding is when this takes place: right after the police turned violent on the bridge. The movie makes it seem like the second guy never considered that the police would get ugly and is only thinking of fighting back with violence now. How the hell does a violent police response surprise a grown black man in the South? And would not a scene concerning a discussion of nonviolence vs. violence make more sense before an organized march begins. After all, the whole point of the march is to provoke the police into being violent against non-violent protestors and get the national media to take pictures and report the oppression to the rest of the country thereby turning around popular opinion and pressuring politicians to pass Civil Rights legislation. That is the plan. It is a very good one and MLK Jr. is nothing if not an articulate man. Why did this protestor not know the plan?

Pundits in the NYTimes have made a big deal over how President Lyndon Johnson is portrayed in this movie. Basically he tells MLK Jr. to slow down on Voting Rights so he can implement his War on Poverty. Historians don’t like this because Lyndon Johnson did no such thing. However what is more troubling (as a movie critic) is why it seems the writer made the decision to turn Johnson from a real life ally and into a fictional villain. It seems the writer did it to save himself a big pile of work explaining to the audience how it is that a bill becomes a law. In this movie, the Voting Rights Act becomes a reality once Lyndon Johnson stops stalling and gives a speech to Congress asking them to enact it. It seriously does not get more complex than that. It is a stunning example of political ignorance to suggest that a presidential speech is all that is needed to pass a landmark law. To explain it properly would have not been easy but I submit it was possible and a well-written movie could have done it. Instead we have a movie that may just make people stupider by watching it. 

There are basic problems with editing in some scenes. In one, a conversation between MLK and Johnson is ended with the phrase, “I want you to do something for me.” A scene follows this with Johnson’s aide and an associate of MLK’s. I am now expecting the aide to tell the associate what Johnson wants. Actually the conversation is about something else entirely, a supposed assassination plot. The movie then goes back to MLK and Johnson so Johnson can explain to MLK what he wants. This is called a fake-out and if there is not a good reason for it (I did not see one) it bespeaks incompetence. Another fake-out occured when the editor decided to jump back and forth from a nighttime scene to a daytime scene without immediately explaining that the daytime scene takes place the next day. These are the sorts of things that employ the people at Rifftracks. Now take the big scene, the confrontation on the bridge in Selma. It is an utter mess logistically speaking. Given how fast the horses move and how far we can plainly see them down the bridge in certain wide shots, it makes no sense at all how the movie shows the episode unfolding. It seems that the movie is taking moments from the beginning, middle, and end of the confrontation and mixing them altogether hoping on slow motion action shots to obfuscate the lack of continuity. Even weirder, the scene is narrated IN THE PAST TENSE by an UNINTRODUCED reporter who is not present AT THE SCENE. We later learn that he is narrating into a phone booth after the fact. Who the hell is he? Where was he during the bridge scene? How the fuck does he know what he knows if he wasn’t there? I am getting angry!

Okay I could say more but that is enough for one review. Let’s go back to the previous question: Is this an affirmative action Oscar nomination? Well, not necessarily. The Academy has long had a lack of imagination concerning what kinds of pictures deserve nominations. Notoriously, comedies and blockbusters are always disregarded, whereas inspirational biopics are generally over represented. This year there are four in the Best Picture Race (American Sniper, Selma, Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything). I have only seen two of these (Selma and Imitation Game) but neither deserves to be in the running. It just so happens that it is easier to judge the accuracy of something that has happened (for instance David Oyelowo sounds like MLK Jr.) and it feels right to honor a movie about honorable people (MLK and Alan Turing.) So Affirmative Action, that is certainly not the whole story here. The genre itself is generally subsidized. Who knows, maybe it was Chris Rock that got snubbed. I have not seen “Top Five” but I heard it was very good.

What bothers me most about the storyline of these Oscars is the idea that having all Caucasions automatically makes the choices conservative. The three front-runners are movies by Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel), Richard Linklater (Boyhood), and Alejandero Inarritu (Birdman). These movies are nothing like each other, are especially innovative, and the makers have never won Oscars before. Anderson and Linklater in particular have been around for decades refining their very unique style of movies into truly impressive art that can no longer be ignored. Ava Duvernay on the other hand hasn’t done shit. To say she was snubbed disrespects those that were nominated.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (5/5 Stars)

A love poem to Civilization

There is a moment in “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” that stands out to me. Our hero, M. Gustave (played by Ralph Fiennes) the concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel has been unjustly imprisoned for the murder of his frequent hotel guest and late lover played by Tilda Swinton. His loyal lobby boy, Zero (introducing Tony Revolori) conspires to help him escape. He engages his fiancé/baker’s apprentice played by Saorise Ronan to hide metal tools in the pastries he regularly sends to his mentor. Unfortunately every gift from outside must pass the rigorous inspection of the prison, i.e. a big man with a big butcher’s knife who unceremoniously cuts up everything that comes his way. But behold when this big man with this big knife sees these pastries so elegantly crafted with grace and artistry his heart grows and melts. He cannot bear to destroy them and lets the pastries (and the escape tools) pass onto our hero. And if this one scene was all you saw you should know from experience by now that you are in a Wes Anderson movie.

‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ is another masterpiece. That makes two in a row for Wes Anderson who is absolutely flaming red hot right now. Arguably it is his best film. When I reviewed ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ I outlined Anderson’s improvements in his style over his first six movies. Namely that he had cast actors in sufficiently dramatic roles with enough stage presence to burst through his overly saturated and inevitably stifling style. Second that he had provided his film with an actual climax and not an existential sigh of an ending. Third: that he had switched from telling the stories of rich people with bullshit problems to poor people with actual problems. All of that is here in this story. We have Wes Anderson’s best villain to date, an evil Adrian Brody, intent on usurping justice, stealing his inheritance, and killing those who get in his way. He employs a hit man played by Willem Defoe. In addition almost everyone employs colorful language. This is a must in a Wes Anderson film. It shocks one out of the sublime contemplation of the art direction and refocuses attention on the characters. The climax of the story involves not only a sled race down a snowy mountain but also a shootout in the hotel. Also there is the aforementioned break out from the prison, which involves some ingenious sight gags. And the story is about the servants of a hotel, in particular a refugee lobby boy whose entire family was killed during World War I.

On On top of all of this Wes Anderson has added something extra special that has never before graced his movies. He has added reason and purpose to his overly stylized approach. In this movie it is called for from the story itself, not simply because this is a movie made by Wes Anderson. First, the story is told in several flashbacks. The movie starts off with a girl in present day reading a book by the statue of its author, a hero of the Eastern European Country she is resident. The movie moves into a flashback of the elderly author played by Tom Wilkinson who starts telling us the story of how he came upon the story as a young man. The movie flashbacks to Jude Law, the younger version of the author, who is staying at the now decript communist version of the hotel when he meets the now elderly lobby boy played by F. Murray Abraham. The two have a catered dinner in the ballroom of the hotel and F. Murray Abraham narrates his story. All throughout these several flashbacks the production design of the movie gets more and more fanciful till it becomes clear when we get to the lobby boy’s story that we are witnessing a visual game of telephone. The story is real but the telling of it has become overly stylized as it has been passed on from generation to generation. Obviously the invading force is made up of Nazis although they are not named so in the movie. And surely the Grand Budapest Hotel did not look so pink and red or so much like a minature model in real life. It’s costuming has been the work of several permutations of the same tale over the course of time.

Second and more importantly the movie has a philosophy on why such costuming is important even noble. The little niceties of civilized life, the grandeur of the lobby, the manners and rituals of a many course meal, the way the hotel staff righteously guards the privacy of their guests, all are contrasted with the barbaric cruelties presented in this time period of epic slaughter. At a particularly dark time in the story, the tale is interrupted by the serving of a dessert and a special desert wine. And it is a relief. The comforting ritual is an escape from the random slaughter of the outside world. Somewhere someone cares about your experience. That is what the ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ means. It is a precious love poem to civilization. It is the prison guard that can’t bring himself to destroy something so beautiful.

We live in a world that so often takes the most cynical route possible because it is the easiest and perhaps the most truthful. But Wes Anderson cares about your movie going experience. He has made this extra special gem just for you as a brief escape from all the nihilistic meanness out there. This movie has love poured into every detail of the story and production.

What enormous amount of respect Wes Anderson commands in the Hollywood community now! Just take a look at this cast most of which are in very bit parts. Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Ed Norton, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Mathieu Amalric, Harvey Keitel, Willem Defoe, Jeff Goldblum, Lea Seydoux, Tom Wilkinson, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes, Saorise Ronan, and introducing Tony Revolori. Apparently most of them just wanted to hang out on the set because the atmosphere excited them. I’ve heard that Wes Anderson employs a friend chef of his who cooks a great meal for dinner for everybody in the production every night of shooting. If tickets were sold to these dinners they would be priceless.

One more thing: Tom Wilkinson’s character speaks about writing not as a solo art but as the result of merely being open to the ideas and stories of those around you. Well, Wes Anderson may deflect admiration all he wants but one thing is for certain. He can be credited with recruiting an incredible team around him. The production design of this movie was led by Adam Stockhausen (also worked on Moonrise Kingdom). The art direction was led by Stephan O. Gessler, Gerald Sullivan, and Steve Summersgill. The set decoration was led by Anna Pinnock. The costumes were made by Milena Canonero. If they aren’t remembered come Oscar time next year, it isn’t my bad taste; everybody else are uncivilized barbarians. 

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (5/5 Stars)

See Tom Run.

The plot of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol is ludicrous. There is this rogue Russian ex-general who has gone insane. We see about a 30 second newsreel footage of him giving a speech in parliament about the necessary weeding out a thermonuclear war would play in furthering the course of human evolution. Given that logic he has been attempting to steal nuclear launch codes and to start a full out war between Russia and the United States. To this end he succeeds in framing special agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and the IMF for the bombing of the Kremlin in Moscow. The crazy man, played by Michael Nyqvist, spends most of his time running away from Tom Cruise who is running away from the Russian police. He is an undeveloped bad guy that functions less as a real person and more as a MacGuffin which enables the plot to go from high stakes scenario to high stakes scenario. Halfway through the movie I stopped caring. What became obvious to me halfway through the movie was that I was watching some of the best and well-made action sequences since “The Bourne Ultimatum.” I’m not even sure I wanted the guy to get caught because that would have ended the movie, which was ceaselessly thrilling. A critic may rationalize any viewpoint but cannot ignore involuntary bodily functions. For example, all laughter during a comedy no matter how low or stupid the jokes are must be admitted. In this movie, I can report that my stomach churned several times in the same way it would if I were on a roller coaster at Magic Mountain. This is a great action movie and worth watching just for the thrills. Do not wait to see it on video. See it in a theater and try to see it in IMAX.

It makes sense that the director of “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” does not have any previous action movies under his belt. In fact he doesn’t have any live action movies under his belt. Instead the director Brad Bird is an alumnus from Pixar. He directed such animated movies like “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille.” This becomes obvious because unlike so many action movie directors, he has put in the effort to competently storyboard, shoot, and edit his action sequences. Everything is super clear, the laws of physics are obeyed, and the action proceeds logically but not predictably. I hope that this movie makes a lot of money and inspires other action movie directors to try a bit harder at their craft. Or at least let it be shaming. They've been one-upped grandly by a cartoonist. 

The coup de grace sequence in this movie involves Tom Cruise (as special agent Ethan Hunt) scaling the side of the Burj Dubai (the tallest building in the world) with these special gloves that may or may not functionally work. I don’t know how they did it safely but what is on the screen is seriously freaky stuff. That of course, is only part of a movie that includes several car chases (one in a dust-storm), fistfights, and suspenseful spy stings replete with some seriously cool gadgetry and large explosions. All of this is done exceptionally well. 

In fact, it is shot in such a way, that it is obvious that the stars are doing actual stunts. For instance, Tom Cruise is clearly racking up some serious mileage running as fast as he can in plenty of scenes. And there he is doing the actual fight choreography in several fistfights. You can tell because the camera shots are far away enough and have long enough duration to tell. As far as the stunts on the Burj Dubai are concerned, well the producers made sure there were several featurettes online showing Tom Cruise on the outside of the building to quell any suspicions that it was some stuntman doing it or that it was shot in a green room and the outside added later. He really is there. I consider this as counting toward some top-notch acting. What's more is that Cruise and the other characters actually look scared, surprised, or concerned for their lives when really crazy shit starts to happen. I have seen too many movies where nobody seems to notice large explosions or machine gun fire. I find it far more effective (and dramatically correct) when characters notice just how dangerous something is. Case in point: Tom Cruise's face when he drives his car off a platform with a hundred 100 meter drop. Give that guy an Oscar Nomination. That's exactly the facial expression he should have. Let’s see Meryl Streep do that.

The IMF team works very well both as an action ensemble and in another degree as a comedy team. Tom Cruise gets the plum action jobs but that doesn’t mean that Jeremy Renner (from “The Hurt Locker”) doesn’t have some good scenes as well (a particularly good one involves him infiltrating a super computer by jumping into an oven hoping that some magnets work (it makes sense in the movie)). Paula Patton for her part lands the starring role in the movie's best fistfight with a lady baddie played by Ley Seydoux. Rounding out the group is Simon Pegg providing computer tech savvy and his usual humorous self. Most of the situations are so tightly wound that the comedy pitches thrown to Pegg are routinely knocked out of the park like softballed lobs. One of the best moments in the movie has Pegg walking into a room and saying, “That was not easy, but I did it.” This gets a huge laugh. That sort of reaction can only be accomplished by having one of the most death-defying stunts in the movie happen right before that. Pegg's humor cashes in on the suspense consistently. I would go so far as to say that this is the best Mission: Impossible movie that has been made. I'm glad they made it. 

One thing that is noticeably absent in this particular installment of “Mission Impossible” is any hint of sex. In this, it follows the trend in American action movies in particular. There once was a time when James Bond had a pretty swinging lifestyle. You can’t say that about the Daniel Craig incarnation. And when did Jason Bourne have any time for that sort of thing. In this movie, Tom Cruise gets as close as a longing glance from several blocks away. Just saying. 

Valkyrie (3/5 Stars) 01/17/09

Valkryie is the code word for the failed mission to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the S.S. by senior members of the German Army. The leader of the movement was a Colonel Stauffenberg played in this movie by Tom Cruise. Other rebellious generals are the character actors Kenneth Branaugh, Bill Nighy, and Tom Wilkinson. Tom Hollander plays the short part of the ambiguous ‘maybe he knows’ Nazi. The director is Bryan Singer of X-Men and The Usual Suspects fame. 
I like Tom Cruise movies and I like Bryan Singer movies and the chance for them to work together you would think are a match made in heaven on paper. The problem for about half of this movie is that the story does not fit the mold of that gung ho epic Cruise/Singer style. This movie is about a very intricate, secretive plot to kill Hitler. It should not be getting the blockbuster treatment. It doesn’t fit. I talk in particular of those very ‘Lord of the Rings’ shots where Singer takes his camera and shoots a moving car from the vantage of a helicopter. Now this works in the second half of the film as the attempt goes underway and there is substantial action in the picture. But in the first half they are completely uncalled for. The camera shots should be tight on Cruise creating a claustrophobic conspiratorial atmosphere. After the bomb goes off and coup becomes underway then the choices Singer has made are all very good. There is a particularly good shot where military men are running amidst a large plaza full of flags of Nazi Swastikas. Cruise then is allowed to be ‘Tom Cruise’ finally and the movie picks up speed. Still it is not perfect. The best movie to compare this one to is ‘Apollo 13.’ They are both movies based on real life whose success largely depends on the maker’s ability to create suspense out of a situation the audience already knows the outcome of. The question must be transformed from ‘Will it be successful?’ to ‘How is it going to be a success/failure?’ Apollo 13 was certainly a masterpiece of that genre. Valkyrie is simply good. It lacks the amount of smart dialogue and complex problem solving that took place in the former. It is like Apollo 13 but not enough like it. I can venture to say that even if you have no interest in NASA you will likely get a kick out of Apollo 13. On the other hand, if you are a history buff you will like Valkyrie but if you think history is bunk then I’d give you a 50-50 chance of liking it. I like history so I liked it.
I was particularly impressed by the nervous performance of Bill Nighy. Tom Cruise does an upstanding job, as always, particularly with his amputations. Hitler is a letdown; we never get to see that famous temper I witnessed in ‘Downfall.’ Tom Wilkinson, Tom Hollander, and Terrence Stamp have roles that speak to the skills of the casting director. What I mean by that is that we’ve got some very good character actors filling roles that are below their pay grade. It’s like I was watching a Woody Allen film, (who is perhaps the best casting director ever.)

Michael Clayton 10/14/07

Clooney is broke. Wilkinson is crazy, and Tilda Swinton is so sick she can barely look at herself in the mirror. She stares and attempts to perfect a speech she is about to begin. It's rare to see a woman look so ugly in a movie. Everyone in this movie is on the edge and at least one (Wilkinson) has gone over in a flaming rocket.
Conscience strikes is what happens. A lawyer, that for six years has been defending the incredibly guilty corporation U North because of a poison product, has finally broke down and become reborn. In his best performance to date, Tom Wilkinson plays the manic depressive who has stopped taking his medication and experiences a moment of clarity. He runs down the street naked chasing after a plaintiff he has fallen in love with. But that's just the start, now he's switching sides in a 3 billion dollar lawsuit and all hell is breaking loose with Clooney's Michael Clayton in the middle.
This is one of the best movies I have seen this year. The dialogue is smart and incredibly acted and the story has a certain urgency in it. and more than that, the story has choices. The charachters are presented with choices that are not clear cut and to the viewer look like they could go either way. Sydney Pollack also has a good part here and listen as he talks Michael out of having a change of heart. Great stuff. Also Wilkinson providing advice to Clooney on his mental condition. Fantastic. Or Tilda Swinton feeling the affects of her choices, (This is not a villain who can do horrible things and not flinch). Like I said one of the best movies I've seen this year. Wilkinson should get a nomination at least.